He also looks at such things as the “social credit” system of bartering goods and services and reforming the higher education system to “teach and demonstrate some values.” Longer on description than prescription but a provocative work of social criticism.

He makes a forceful case for old-fashioned bipartisan economic policymaking that “is deeply concerned with both preserving and enhancing the efficiency of the market system and with improving the lot of society’s least fortunate citizens.”

Readers frustrated at the trickle of news from China (the only nation with an active manned space program) will thrill at this lucid, detailed, and admiring account of wealthy space buffs who are spending their own money, making headlines, producing genuine technical advances, and resurrecting the yearning to explore the cosmos.

The authors give ample evidence that “the driving commercial impulse, the spirit of enterprise” underlay the creation of America. As John Smith wrote in 1616, no “other motive than wealth will ever erect there a Commonweale.” A lively and illuminating revisionist history.

The assurance that any of us can become part of the “propertied mastery” advances dog-eat-dog implications...Smart and sometimes snarky; a book to study up on before taking to the streets to protest things as they are.

When "The Quiet American" is read against the background of these articles, it can be seen to be more profoundly related to Greene's earlier religious novels than its polemic character at first suggested.

...the authors illustrate how individuals managed successfully to place the constellations of good fortune in alignment. They are quick to note that you won’t get lucky sitting home watching TV. A brightly crafted, overlong diversion.

He’s less successful, it seems to me, in pushing his view throughout the book that Thiel, Mr. A, Hogan and Harder were involved in an old-fashioned “conspiracy” — in the Stoical sense of the word — to bring down Denton and his crew.

I thoroughly enjoyed Skin in the Game and that I strongly recommend it. But if you are new to Taleb's work, you shouldn't start with this book. It will make more sense and you'll get more out of it if you're already familiar with Taleb's core ideas...

...the author urges a renewal of civic education to enable people “to work with others to separate facts and logic from values and beliefs,” including, one assumes, the belief that it is acceptable to rob the public blind. Idealistic and stronger in description than prescription, but a provocative essay nonetheless.